


stonebird

by savechangbin2019



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Bird Box Au, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Not Happy, Sort Of, Yang Jeongin | I.N-centric, ships are hinted at, they’re still idols
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-10-07 14:29:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17367608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savechangbin2019/pseuds/savechangbin2019
Summary: the world has come to a violent, cruel end and it seems like it wanted Jeongin to watch as it took everything and everything from him.he thought he and his hyungs would always “stay together”, no matter what, but life is unfair and he is unlucky.or ~ the story of how nine became noneA Stray Kids “Bird Box” AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this story is gonna have a trigger warning for mentions of suicide and other kinds of death.
> 
> If you don’t like that, you shouldn’t read this.

The grass doesn’t feel the same anymore. Jeongin runs his fingers through the blades, unsure of what exact shade of green they are. They feel wrong. Everything feels wrong as he lies in that damp place, his legs and his heart both having completely given up after mindlessly walking for what felt like days, but was probably a much shorter amount of time.

 

The birds are silent now. Everything’s silent. His members are all gone. He’s the only one left.

 

Jeongin remembers it all far too clearly. It has been seared permanently into his worn out brain, but he isn’t sure how long ago it was. It could’ve been a month, it could’ve been two days. Time stops mattering when you have nowhere to go and no one to see. It isn’t a surprise that he remembers everything because it has all been so recent, but even so, its like his memories have become HD and he remembers details he normally would never have noticed, and at the same time, he remembers only vague blurs. He simultaneously remembers everything and nothing.

 

Its sunny today, much like it had been on the first day of the end. He knows because he feels it burning his skin and can see it shining through his blindfold, despite the fact that his eyes are closed. He knows he’s near a cliff edge, but other than that, he’s completely lost. The ‘wind’ is strangely quiet right now. Maybe it knows by now that it’s pointless to even try and get to him. He’s already too far gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chan had been the first to go. Jeongin reckons that was when he truly stopped living too. Chan had been everything to him. He’d meant everything to them all. Without him, there was no Stray Kids. Without him, they really were just strays. He had given them purpose and a home.

 

Aside from reports of mass suicides in other countries and people on the street appearing, understandably, much more on edge than normal and there being an worryingly high amount of abandoned houses and driveways, Jeongin can’t recall anything particularly out of the ordinary. The traffic on the road had been much busier and more frantic too, but that was a detail Jeongin would only remember after the events that followed.

 

They had been told by staff that it was business as usual and their unveil tour had been fast approaching, so they’d all woken up early, eager to improve their skills.

 

Touring is beyond being an impossible fantasy now, let alone alone being an Idol.

 

Jeongin had walked alongside Seungmin, Hyunjin and Felix, all on their way to practise that day. Changbin, Minho and Jisung had walked slightly ahead and then right in the front had been Chan and Woojin, walking with one another as they so often used to do, leading the way.

 

It had all been relatively fine until Chan’s phone had to ring and he stopped walking and froze to the spot once he’d answered it.

 

Woojin seemed concerned as Chan’s gaze had fallen to the ground, and Jeongin, having passed them by now, paused and looked back. He only heard the odd word, and the names Bambam and Youngjae were mentioned, and Chan’s eyes had glazed over with tears. Perhaps their seniors had been the latest victims of the mass suicides. Jeongin would never know.

 

Chan then choked up and turned away from Woojin to face the road, a decision he would not live to regret, but Jeongin most definitely would and he must have told Woojin to walk ahead with the rest of them, because Woojin’s gaze left Chan’s face and returned to the remaining seven members.

 

They left Chan by himself on that street, walking together for a few brief moments, but Jeongin looked back just to make sure Chan was following and that he was okay and that’s when everything ended.

 

The sky seemed to darken and distant screams filled the air and Jeongin heard something explode. It all happened at once, like a switch had been flipped and the world he had known was gone.

 

Chan was not following them. He was standing in the same spot but he wasn’t crying anymore. His eyes were fixed on the darkening sky above the buildings on the adjacent street, but when Woojin called his name and he turned to face them, those were not his eyes. Something had clicked in Jeongin’s brain and he knew somehow that Chan was gone. Chan’s eyes had been brown, and so warm and beautiful and they’d made Jeongin feel so safe.

 

The screams only got louder and the sky darker in the space of a few seconds and Jeongin began to smell fire. The sun was gone and the wind seemed to be calling to him, although he’d come to learn that that was most definitely not wind.

 

Woojin tried to grab Chan’s arm, as they all immediately saw the strange look in his eyes, but the older boy been too far away and Chan had already been exposed. Chan looked Woojin directly in the eyes for a few moments, as if saying goodbye but perhaps saying nothing at all.

 

The screams of Jeongin’s hyungs filled his ears just as Chan stepped backwards into the street before any of them could stop him, not that they would’ve been able to.

 

There was a screech of breaks, screams that echoed down the street and right into Jeongin’s bones, a crash and a horrifying noise that words couldn’t describe but it was the sound that a human being makes when they hit a fast moving truck.

 

Blood had gone everywhere and Jeongin could hear his own heartbeat ringing in his ears and Chan was gone from this earth in a second. Their brave, wonderful, kind, funny, smart, compassionate leader. Everything that Chan was, everything that he could’ve grown to be, all the love and music and light he’d yet to shine on the world was wiped out in a single second. In one moment, he was alive and so full of hope and optimism and unrivalled ambition, and the next he was mess of blood and mangled limbs on the street.

 

Jeongin didn’t know what happened after that. He just shut down and everything blurred together and someone grabbed him and carried him away before Chan’s body was even cold and before the light had even completely left his eyes.

 

Maybe his body couldn’t handle it, and maybe he just passed out from shock, because the next thing he knew, he was surrounded by his members in a house he didn’t recognise.

 

Felix had suddenly become ill because of how stressed he was and because he couldn’t handle what had happened and lay on the floor of a bathroom across from the room the rest of them remained in, staring at the wall in silence, like he’d just closed down.

 

Hyunjin had fallen into a catatonic state and wouldn’t respond to anyone. His eyes simply glazed over and looked straight ahead. He lost himself along with Chan on that road.

 

Meanwhile Seungmin poured everything he had into taking care of him. Anything to distract from whatever had just happened. Seungmin had been good at taking care of them. Jeongin had always found it hard to read Seungmin, and he wasn’t in the best frame of mind so he couldn’t see what his emotions were but they couldn’t have been much different from his own.

 

Jisung had a a vicious, unrelenting panic attack and wouldn’t stop hyperventilating until he passed out in Minho’s arms. He’d known Chan for longer than most of them had.

 

Minho, having already been close to Jisung, emotionally attached himself to the younger boy. Perhaps he thought saving him would make up for Chan, or at least distract from it. Perhaps protecting Jisung was like a security blanket, and by extension he was protecting himself from the truth.

 

Changbin normally would’ve been the first to help any of them. People had often gotten the wrong idea about him from first impressions, because he really was friendly and sweet and had loved them all so much. But Felix, even though he sorely needed it, went without help because Changbin had never looked so lost. He wandered around aimlessly, his eyes wide and distant and Jeongin, if he’d been able to think clearly then, would’ve been able to see how scared and traumatised his brave hyung was.

 

Woojin had never been especially emotionally vulnerable with them, not for any particular reason but rather just because that was the way he was. But after Chan died that day, he never opened up to any of them again. He closed off all his emotions and refused to talk to any of them. He ran around the house they were in, which had been totally abandoned by the previous owner, barricading doors and closing curtains, all while clutching a old fashioned radio in his arms which was blaring all kinds of warnings that Jeongin couldn’t hear and wearing a completely black expression.

 

Chan’s name was only mentioned once after that, and that was a much fresher memory Jeongin wishes he could forget because it haunts him, but that didn’t come till much later.

 

Jeongin never tried to grieved Chan’s death, mostly due to the fact that he didn’t get enough time, but also because he simply ignored it. It hadn’t happened. The world, however cruel and unfair it may have been before it ended, did not get to decide to blow out the bright flame that was Bang Chan. It didn’t have the right. The world really did end that day, because there was no world worth living in that could discard their wonderful leader as if he was nothing. Jeongin owed Chan everything and loved him so much that words could not fully describe just how much he loved him. They all did. Anyone who had ever met Chan, even for the briefest of moments, did. You simply didn’t not love Christopher Bang and everything that he stood for. It was impossible.

 

Chan had been the rope, Jeongin reckons. He was the rope the tied them together and kept them safe, and that rope had snapped. Maybe if Chan hadn’t died first, they could’ve stayed alive a little longer. Maybe the events that would follow would have played out differently.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

Woojin tried so hard.

 

Woojin tried to keep them alive as best as he could, but without Chan’s leadership, they were lost, and without Chan, Woojin was lost.

 

Jeongin has never questioned the nature of Woojin and Chan’s relationship. It was never his business, and it wouldn’t have bothered him in the slightest. All he knows is that both of the oldest members were always there for any of them when they needed them so whatever they had together hadn’t distracted them from anything else that mattered.

 

Jeongin wasn’t stupid before when he was still an Idol, and he isn’t now. He knows what the fans would talk about and part of him thinks it was pretty strange, but the other part of him thinks it was sweet that the fans try to search for romantic love between members. It’s a comforting idea to Jeongin now. The idea that so many people wanted to see more love in the world.

 

What bothered Jeongin back before everyone left and when he could afford to care about such trivial things, was that people always saw how badly Chan must need Woojin, but no one ever wondered about the reverse. Not even Jeongin, or at least he didn’t until it was too late.

 

He only realised how much pain Woojin was in when the oldest knelt down beside him and started explaining everything to him. Woojin had told him that there was something wrong with their world. There was something in it that shouldn’t be there and as soon as any human being laid eyes on it, their lives were over so none of them could look outside ever again if they valued being alive, although Jeongin had already begun questioning whether he did at this point. He was never going to see his family again because they lived so far away. They were probably dead already, and so was Chan, who was one of eight other people that he saw as family, whether they were related or not.

 

While he’d treated his hyung’s words with great caution and hung onto every syllable, the knowledge that everything Jeongin had known had been taken over by monsters wasn’t what stuck closest with him. It was that, while he spoke, Woojin had such a gentle aura about him that was not something Jeongin had seen around him before, yet it was still so strikingly familiar. He took such care with his words and made sure the youngest understood every last detail.

 

It only occurs to Jeongin now, as he lies in the damp grass, the wetness soaking through his filthy clothes and into his skin, and listens to the sound of nothing around him, just who Woojin had reminded him of in that brief moment and it only made it hurt more. He’d been so maternal and soft and it was almost as if, just for that tiny amount of time, a flickering second, Chan was alive again, or like Chan’s spirit still lingered within Woojin. His eyes had shone with the same concern and his sad smile had looked just like one Chan would wear whenever he was comforting one of the other members. Jeongin, for a tiny moment in time, felt okay.

 

And then the moment was over and the eldest had closed off again, returning to himself.

 

Woojin did everything he could. He ordered that they all wear blindfolds made from material he’d found upstairs and he’d been so tough on them it was almost cruel, but it had still so obviously been because he couldn’t survive losing anyone else and he needed them to understand. Death does funny things to people.

 

Their beloved, cuddly Woojin was gone from the moment Chan died and was replaced with someone cold and emotionless and broken.

 

They’d been about to leave anyway. Woojin had kept them all alive for a few miserable days, which were spent in complete silence because no one had a clue what to say to one another and some of them, Jeongin included, couldn’t even talk at all. It all went wrong on the third day when Woojin and Minho agreed that they couldn’t stay here any longer, and that meant venturing outside.

 

Jeongin now knew that Woojin probably could’ve come with them but something in the older boy’s eyes told the Maknae he didn’t want to. He obviously wanted to see Chan again as soon as he possibly could.

 

Woojin was always so strong for them and always looked after them, and it just seemed like he was really tired.

 

Jeongin understands why he did it, and he absolutely doesn’t have it within him to hold it against Woojin. There was no one who was a better example of everything a big brother should be than Kim Woojin, and Jeongin could tell so clearly by that point that what Woojin had lost in Chan had been so different from anyone else. With every passing second, it had become more glaringly obvious. The dullness in his eyes had screamed to the Maknae that de’d lost the kind of love you are lucky if you come across in your life, the kind of love that you will only ever experience with one person.

 

Jeongin doesn’t even feel like he needs to forgive Woojin, because he didn’t do anything wrong. He was grieving the loss of a soulmate and he didn’t want to hurt anymore. God knows Jeongin understands on some level. The hole Chan left in their lives was an injury none of them would ever get to recover from. He can’t even fathom what was running through his oldest hyung’s head when he did what he did next, but Jeongin isn’t angry at him for it, even now.

 

Woojin had lined them all up outside of the back door, their blindfolds all double knotted and their hands all intertwined with the person behind and in front of them.

 

Woojin had positioned Minho at the front of the line, perhaps trusting his instincts more than his own, and had planned to go at the back, so the younger members and Changbin would have a sort of layer of protection. He’d been so cautious, tying their wrists together so they couldn’t accidentally let go. Perhaps it hadn’t been the most thought-out plan, but in all fairness, Woojin didn’t realise until minutes later that people would even want to attack them. He had no reason to think about that.

 

He’d just finished tying Jeongin’s wrist to Seungmin’s, who had been standing in front of him. The youngest had been placed at the back of the line, and he suspects this was deliberate. Woojin had placed the most vulnerable members, namely Felix, Changbin and Hyunjin, directly in the centre, where they would be the most protected. It was just another way Woojin subtly showed how much he cared.

 

Jeongin can still feel the burning cut the material left on his wrist. The fact that he doesn’t have a matching cut on his other wrist is just another reminder that his hyung is gone.

 

Woojin had been about to put on his own blindfold and join Jeongin when they all seemed to jolt with fear.

 

A loud banging came from the front room. Someone was yelling and bashing the window and trying to get in.

 

Jeongin felt like he could sense when Woojin decided not to come with them. The muffled sound of breaking glass had filled their ears and Jisung and Felix had both let out a whimper of terror.

 

Jeongin felt Woojin hastily kiss his forehead, a feeling he swears made a permanent home on his skin because he can still feel it, and then he heard him tell Minho to go right now.

 

Minho tried to protest, but Woojin yelled and ordered him to leave immediately. He would distract them, he’d promised, and he’d find them later. Then Jeongin heard a door open and he knew Woojin was gone.

 

Minho had been forced to agree and Jeongin felt Seungmin pull on his hand, and then the cold air of the outside hit his face.

 

Jeongin never saw Woojin again. He knows the chances he survived are slim to none, given what he himself would eventually watch happen to Hyunjin with his own eyes. He knows there is no stopping the people who didn’t kill themselves but instead went crazy. He knew his hyung was dead, and if he wasn’t somehow, Jeongin almost hoped he was. He didn’t want Woojin to feel the same loneliness he felt.

 

Woojin had left his life quietly, as quietly as he’d been while he was still in it, but his presence left such a huge chasm in Jeongin’s soul. Woojin never needed words to make you feel safe. Simply knowing he was in your life was enough, and Jeongin hasn’t felt safe since he left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two down, seven to go...
> 
> I’m so sorry. I love Woojin so much. He holds such a special place in my heart and I hope I did him justice.
> 
> Y’all better not sleep on him. >:(


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen,,,, don’t question the format of this chapter. I don’t know what happened either.

 

 

 

 

There was something so strikingly different about how Hyunjin died.

Jeongin wonders if it was because it was the most violent or possibly because it so drastically contrasted who Hyunjin had been as a person.

The dancer had been so soft and gentle, and the way he died was just...

Jeongin has so many thoughts racing around his head already, and he just can’t latch onto words that quite describe how Hyunjin died, or how he felt about it.

Unspeakable came closest, and unspeakable had been a word Jeongin knew well by this point. He hasn’t uttered a word since Chan.

When it came to Chan, Jeongin had managed to partially suppress that particular scar because it had all happened so fast, and from where he was standing, he saw blood, and heard that bone-cracking smack that had occurred when he hit the truck, but the maknae hadn’t gotten a good look at the body, so on some level, his brain is able to deny that it even happened.

He also hadn’t seen Woojin die, although he knows his hyung is dead. He’d died to protect them, and Jeongin would never know how he went out.

With Hyunjin, there was absolutely no way he can ever pretend it didn’t happen. Its like it has been permanently tattooed onto the insides of his eyelids. He sees it every time he blinks. Whether he likes it or not, Jeongin, no matter how hard he tries, can’t deny the fact that Hwang Hyunjin is deader than dead and that will never ever change. He is gone from the earth and he will never come back.

Minho had been doing so well as their newest edition of leader too.

 

 

 

 

 

As they navigated their way through the outdoors blindly, holding onto each other desperately, Seungmin kept an especially tight hold onto Hyunjin, because the former dancer might just slip away or wander off if he didn’t. Jeongin, being blindfolded of course, could only tell because he was behind Seungmin and every so often, the older boy would lurch forwards to keep a hold on Hyunjin, who was in front of him.

Jinnie wasn’t really responsive anymore. Jeongin is still surprised they didn’t have to carry him.

 

 

 

 

 

Minho led the group like Woojin had wanted. He could think the most clearly and he was now the oldest, but Jeongin thinks now that residual insecurities from his elimination may have still lingered and he didn’t want to let the group down again. The blatant anxiety Minho had exhibited during the show had come back in full force. That cocky, confident front he put on had evaporated.

That survival show seemed like it never happened, like it as a strange dream Jeongin had a long time ago.

There wasn’t even time to acknowledge that they’d just said goodbye to Woojin for a final time, but Jeongin could hear the agonising grief dripping from Minho’s shaking voice every time he yelled at them to hold on or to run or to slow down or even to just keep breathing. The voice they now followed through the wilderness and obeyed with unwavering trust was as broken as the person who it belonged to.

 

 

 

 

 

By some miracle, Minho managed to get them all to safety, although safety is a relative term at this point.

It probably helped that everyone was dead silent. The only noises being made were gentle whimpers from Jisung and Changbin’s quiet mumbling to himself, which had been happening for a few days now.

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, Jeongin found himself in an abandoned house he didn’t recognise. After about an hour of Minho fumbling around in the dark, frantically covering all the windows, just like he’d been told to, he led them into a room where he removed all their blindfolds and unbound their hands.

It was still light outside. Not even a day had past since Woojin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minho tried to get them to eat whatever food he’d found.

Felix did his best, but he couldn’t keep down anything he ate. His body just couldn’t process normal things like that anymore.

Changbin, although distant and still talking gibberish to himself, eventually began picking at the food he’d been given.

Jisung flat out refused. This wasn’t a new habit of his. Even fans had noticed that Minho sometimes had to force Jisung to eat when he was tired or feeling out of it. He was already so skinny, Jeongin is still shocked he didn’t just disappear. In a way, he did eventually but not quite in the same sense, and that didn’t happen till later on.

Seungmin ate quickly, but only so he wouldn’t have to leave Hyunjin’s side for long.

Hyunjin was like a marionette whose strings had been cut. He’d move if someone made him, but he didn’t respond to them. Seungmin tried so hard to get him to eat or drink something, anything, and Minho tried talking to him, but it was as if he was just gone. Like he was already dead.

Jeongin only ate because Minho asked him too. He saw how delirious the now-oldest boy was. He would continually pace around the house they were in, double checking absolutely every single window was completely covered. If Jeongin could take at least one thing off his mind, maybe it would’ve been of some help. He still doesn’t know, but he doubts it helped Minho at all, considering what followed.

 

 

 

 

 

It all went as well as it possibly could’ve until the sun began to set and the room they all were in got gradually darker. They all sat together, the silence swallowing them.

Minho had found a knife. It hadn’t scared Jeongin as much as it should’ve, but it freaked Felix out and Seungmin looked like he didn’t like it one bit. No one else really reacted. He’d told them it was just in case anything happened and they needed to defend themselves. Maybe it cast the fleeting illusion that they could be safe, but if that was the case, no one but Minho believed it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By now, Jisung had passed out from exhaustion, his head laying in the crook of Minho’s neck. The way Minho clung onto the younger boy was as if he was the only thing keeping him alive.

The knife lay on a close by table.

Felix’s eyelids were drooping further and further, weighed down by the dark bags underneath them. He’d managed to wordlessly coerce Changbin into curling up beside him. The older boy had grabbed onto Felix’s arm, hugging it close to his body much like a child might if they were upset or scared.

Jeongin felt sleep creeping up on him too. He’d moved so he was sitting beside Seungmin, whose hand he was now holding onto tightly with both of his.

Hyunjin had apparently tired himself out. This was the one and only time Jeongin had seen him sleep. His head had fallen against Seungmin’s shoulder.

He ponders even now what was going through Minnie’s head. He seemed much calmer than everyone else on the outside, but he’d always been like that. He didn’t show his emotions very well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeongin feels the most for Seungmin after what happened to Hyunjin.

Minnie wasn’t one for fanservice. He never had been. The affection he’d shown to the members had always been real, however rare it might’ve been, but if you looked closely enough and paid attention, you could see how he looked at Hyunjin was different to how he looked at everyone else. It was such a devoted, tender look as if every time their eyes met, Hyunjin was the only person who mattered.

If you looked even closer, you’d have seen that Hyunjin returned the exact same look and that it had been gleaming in his eyes since before they even debuted.

Jeongin had never felt left out despite this though. The bond Seungmin and Hyunjin had had with one another had only made their affection for the maknae that much more powerful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It always irritated him back then, how they would both bother him, but now as he lies under a dying sky, listening to wind that whispers for him to remove his blindfold and open his eyes, completely alone in the world, he wishes he’d appreciated it more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The silence in that awful house had continued to eat away at every single one of them, until a loud bang cut right through it. Everyone jolted awake, terror flooding through them all once more, now a familiar feeling.

Jisung let out a sob, grabbing onto the material of Minho’s shirt.

Seungmin’s grip on Jeongin’s hand tightened significantly.

More banging. Someone was trying to get in. Jeongin can remember the pleading cries for help coming from outside, but he can’t remember what the voice sounded like.

Felix looked like he was about to faint and Changbin didn’t seem like he noticed it. He must’ve truly lost who he was.

Minho’s grip on his knife tightened significantly. He raised a finger to his lips, signalling for them to all stay perfectly quiet, his eyes pleading with them to not do anything stupid.

What happened next happened quicker than Jeongin can ever describe. Hyunjin opened his eyes and sat up. He looked alert, like he was aware of his surroundings finally. They all looked at him in shock. Jeongin noticed Seungmin’s other hand trying to reach out for him, but all of a sudden, Jinnie stood up and walked out of the room, as if being called. Seungmin immediately leapt up and followed after him and Minho darted out of the room too, panic burning in his eyes. Jeongin remembers following them, Jisung and Felix close behind. Changbin didn’t come.

Minho whispered urgently for Hyunjin to come back, because he’d started towards the door where the noise was coming from.

Someone was out there, and they needed help. That much is still clear. Minho had barricaded the door. Opening it wasn’t an option.

Seungmin grabbed onto Hyunjin’s arm, pleading for him to stop, to come away from the door, that it was hopeless to try and help. That he wasn’t okay and he didn’t understand what was going on.

Hyunjin finally spoke and it was like he was in a trance. He’d looked right at the door and said that it might be Woojin. He’d promised to catch up with them, after all, hadn’t he? They couldn’t leave him out there. He’d promised to find them. Hyunjin sounded so sure of himself.

Minho grabbed Hyunjin and tried to drag him back, but Jinnie has always been stronger than he looked. He repeated over and over that it was Woojin at the door and they couldn’t let him die, and his voice cracked when he said it, as if he was close to tears and the only thing that would calm him was letting that person in from outside.

He roughly shoved Minho off him, spurred on purely by desperation to save who he must have truly believed, in his unstable state of mind, to be Woojin, sending the older boy falling to the floor.

Seungmin was in tears now, begging for Hyunjin to stop and this was the first time he’d cried, although not the last.

Hyunjin bent down and peered through the peephole of the door that had been visible through the stacked furniture Minho had used as a barricade, and Jeongin remembers the feeling of devastation and defeat that washed over them all. Hyunjin was dead from that moment.

Minho looked like he died there and then too. He’d been so careful. Jeongin can still tell how careful he’d tried to be. He’d wandered around for hours, repeatedly checking that there was no way of looking out of this house.

When Hyunjin turned around with the same dead look in his eye that Chan had had, the oldest boy knew he’d failed them all.

There was a bubble of silence, a moment in time, where Hyunjin stared straight at Minho, the older boy cowering in terror. Then it all sped up and Hyunjin darted forward, grabbing onto Minho’s arm. Minho tried to fight back, but he couldn’t stop Hyunjin from impaling himself through the neck with the knife he was still holding, that was supposed to protect them.

The ringing in Jeongin’s ears came back as his heart raced too fast for his body to keep up. The chilling, guttural, shuddering, gasping noises that came out of Hyunjin still echo around Jeongin’s head. If you’ve never heard it, there’s no way to describe it but it’s unmistakably the sound of death. The air could no longer get to his lungs, which were filling with blood now instead.

Seungmin caught Hyunjin when the he fell backwards, blood spraying all over him. He watched the life drain from the dancer and onto the floor. They all did.

Jeongin remembers Seungmin’s hands around Hyunjin’s throat, as if somehow he would be able to reverse what Hyunjin had done to himself. As if he might be able to stop the bleeding. There was nothing they could do. It was a terrified, desperate, final attempt to save someone he loved.

Hyunjin very quickly fell limp, eyes empty and glassy, in Seungmin’s arms, in a sea of red, leaving what was left of Stray Kids as nothing more than spectators.

Jeongin blacked out after that. His body simply shut down. He never asked anyone what happened while he was out, because he couldn’t and he also didn’t want to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People who didn’t get the chance to know Hwang Hyunjin didn’t really experience life, Jeongin thinks. Nobody laughed louder than Hyunjin. Nobody smiled brighter. Nobody loved deeper. He was like pure love personified and anyone who was around him couldn’t help but fall for him, even a little.

Jeongin reaches a hand into the air, reaching for what he did not know. snapping himself out of the memory and breathing deeply. In Chan and Woojin, he’d lost what had almost been parental figures. In Hyunjin, he’d lost a brother. A brother who had loved him so intensely and deeply it was terrifying.

 

Jeongin closes his eyes under his blindfold, trying to remember what it felt like to have Hyunjin’s comforting arms around him.

He can’t. The feeling is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so long and I’m sorry.
> 
> It looks really weird. I don’t know what’s happening with the paragraphs so don’t ask. This chapter just wasn’t working for me tbh and idk why. I love Jinnie.
> 
> I know it’s bad. Don’t yell at me. Hyunjin deserves better. 
> 
> Please ignore any and all typos and I promise to have to have the next chapter up much faster.


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

 

Once you meet someone like Lee Felix, do you ever really let them go? People like him are a rarity and from Jeongin’s perspective, every second spent with him up until the very last had been an honour.  
  
  
Jeongin’s memories about what happened between Hyunjin and Felix dying are probably where they’re the foggiest. It’s amazing just how much shock the human body can take on. Jeongin can’t believe he’s still alive after all the stress he’d been through.   
  


What he remembers is distinctly feeling like he was dreaming. It’s like the body he was in was no longer his. It all felt wrong.  
  


He woke up and he was alone beside Changbin, who looked as if he hadn’t moved from that same spot he’d been in for hours. Did he even know Hyunjin was dead? He had to, right? No matter how delusional or lost you’ve become, the death of one of your closest friends couldn’t be something you’d miss, could it?  
  


Jeongin remembers leaving and looking around for the others. He remembers his head swimming and the lights all being a bit too bright.

 

  
He remembers the smeared pool of blood by the door. Hyunjin wasn’t there anymore and a trail of blood led up the stairs, ruining the pale cream coloured carpet, not that it mattered anymore.

 

  
He remembers the sound of shattering glass in the kitchen. Not loud enough to be a window, but loud enough for something to be wrong. Woojin had told them they weren’t supposed to make noise.   


 

When he went to see what it was, he remembers seeing Jisung and Minho sitting on the floor together as the younger boy picked broken pieces of glass out of Minho’s knuckles. Blood gushed out of the deep cuts on the boy’s hands. It looked like he’d intentionally punched through something made of glass. A plate, or a dish of some sort.   
  


Jeongin truly believes this was Minho’s way of punishing himself. He must’ve felt like he’d killed Hyunjin, and maybe he had, but that doesn’t mean he should be blamed for it. If you twisted things far enough, you could blame Woojin for Hyunjin’s death, for giving him false hope that he’d come back. You could even blame Chan for getting himself killed and making Hyunjin so vulnerable. You could blame Seungmin for not being enough to stop Hyunjin from doing what he did. Jeongin even thinks he’s partly to blame too. They simultaneously were all to blame, and weren’t to blame at all.  
  


Jisung took Minho’s face into his hands. Minho was now sobbing so hard he was struggling to breathe. He’d finally broken, and needed Jisung to put him back together, like he always did when he was at his lowest points.

  


Jeongin left the two alone when Jisung pulled Minho into his arms, in some attempt to comfort him. The maknae didn’t want to bother them. That was their private moment.

  
  
Neither of them noticed him.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He found Seungmin and Felix upstairs. He followed the trail of blood and found them. The blood led into a room at the end of the hall, but Jeongin didn’t want to go in. Nothing good would come from it.   
  


Seungmin looked like he’d just given up. He was half sitting, half lying on the ground, leaning against the door to the room, like he’d just collapsed. Felix was wiping the drying blood off his face with a wet cloth. There was so much blood on Seungmin.

  


Jeongin wasn’t sure what to do. Felix had cleaned off one side of Seungmin’s face, but on the other, the maknae could clearly make out the tear tracks that cut through the blood. Seungmin’s eyes were red and his face was puffy and swollen, but it was completely expressionless now, like it always was. It was hard for him to show his emotions on his face. People would usually only notice something bothered him if he was in tears.

 

  
Felix kept repeating that it was all going to be okay, and Jeongin, at the time, questioned how he could sit there and say that, especially to Seungmin of all people, whose clothes had changed colour because of all the blood.   


  
Jeongin remembers how tightly Seungmin hugged him when he’d sat down beside the older. It was tight enough to be uncomfortable but he didn’t mind. Seungmin latched onto him like he was the only thing he had left. Maybe he had guessed what would happen to them in the next twenty four hours?

  


No, Jeongin thinks. He forgets sometimes that Hyunjin had only died yesterday. It seems like such a long time ago. How long since Chan? Jeongin doesn’t remember. It couldn’t be that long.

  


The sun is beginning to set. Jeongin doesn’t want to wait until it’s dark.

 

  
Seungmin had wanted to enter the room again to look at Hyunjin at least one more time, perhaps trying to preserve Jinnie’s face in his mind before he had to say goodbye and leave the room forever, and Felix tried to convince him not to, but he went in anyway, and Jeongin followed. He’s still not sure why.   
  


They’d laid Hyunjin’s body out on the double bed that took up most of the room. It’s not like the former occupants of the house would be returning to use it at this point, so it didn’t matter too much that Hyunjin’s blood had permanently destroyed white linen sheets.

 

  
Jeongin only lasted a few seconds in that room. He felt like he might be sick if he had to look at Hyunjin’s pale skin for one more second. The funny thing was, even in death, he was still so incredibly beautiful. Hyunjin was always so beautiful and he hated being reminded of just how beautiful he was.   
  
  
  
  


  


What to say about Lee Felix? Jeongin doesn’t know if he can really ever do him justice. Words fail to encapsulate him in his entirety. In all the events of Hyunjin passing away and Minho breaking down and Seungmin losing the only person who really got him and Changbin being borderline catatonic, Felix had become somewhat of a background character, but his home in Jeongin’s head and in his heart hadn’t changed.

  


When Felix came to him the morning after Hyunjin died, as they were all preparing to leave, Jeongin realises now he should’ve known. Felix had been standing at the edge of the room they had all gathered in for a while, separate from them all like he was watching over all of them. Like he’d acknowledged his position as a side character and had accepted it.

  


Jeongin felt like something wasn’t right, but couldn’t say anything. He’d made eye contact with Felix, and the older boy had smiled at him like nothing was wrong. It was the same dazzling, twinkly smile that Felix had always worn. The smile that could endear him to anyone, no matter how cold.

  


How could he smile? How, after all that had happened, could he bare to do it?

  


Jeongin should’ve realised by the look in Felix’s eyes. A look that said everything would be okay. Jeongin should’ve known what Felix was planning.

  


It’s a shame. It’s a little bit more than a shame, but Jeongin can no longer muster up another word. It’s a tragic shame that things played out this way. Felix shone so brightly and warmed the souls of everyone who came into contact with him. He touched Jeongin’s heart and changed his life in more ways than he will ever be able to say.

  


Minho hadn’t known what he’d set in motion and allowed Felix to do when he shifted the pile of furniture blocking the back door. They were supposed to leave. All of them. Together.

  


Jeongin was the only one who saw him leave. He should’ve followed, but he didn’t. He should’ve followed. Maybe then, they wouldn’t have all stiffened in horror at the sound of the back door opening and then closing again. Maybe they wouldn’t have all run to see Felix’s blindfold folded neatly on the countertop adjacent to the exit to the house, deliberately placed there.

  


But then, Jeongin thinks, and perhaps he’s delirious now, who is he to decide Felix’s fate for him? Felix has chosen to leave. He couldn’t handle it anymore, and had accepted his own death. He must’ve known they couldn’t survive much longer in this new, dark, hardened world. Maybe his brain or his body had been trying to spare him more pain and grief.

  


Felix had always felt too much. He was too pure and good for this world. That was something people joked about a lot, him being “too good for this world” but it was the truth, especially now. People like Felix weren’t built for the end of days. He didn’t want to survive, and maybe that’s okay. It wouldn’t have been okay before, when they were still Idols, but the rules have changed now.

  


Not to mention, Jeongin plans to follow in his footsteps so who is he to criticise his hyung for his decision?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> really really not happy with this chapter but I didn’t want anyone to think I had abandoned this mess.
> 
>  
> 
> Four down, five to go.


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

Minho never really knew how to live without Jisung. It wasn’t that he was incapable or stupid. It was that, ever since Jisung held his hand during the survival show, Minho had been indebted to the younger boy. He owed him everything.

  


Somewhere along the line, that feeling of being indebted evolved into devotion. Anyone could tell that whenever Minho looked at Jisung, it was as if the young boy held all the stars in the constellations in his eyes, and as if he was personally responsible for the sun rising and setting and Minho had been terrible at hiding it.

  


Minho was in love. There was no other way to put it, and judging from all the lingering touches and stolen moments and gentle smiles, it was a love that was very much reciprocated. They were both young and had no clue what they were doing, but they had each other. That had to be enough, right?

  


Wrong.

  


Jisung was so incredibly young, but people seemed to forget that sometimes. He stayed strong so the other members would know that they were allowed to be weak. He made them laugh constantly and, even if they all teased him for it, they couldn’t have made it as far as they did without him. But he was _so_ young. He was young and terrified and it was getting harder and harder for him to be strong.

  


Jeongin knew as soon as they left that house, and with it the memory of Hyunjin and Felix, that they were nearing the end. There was nowhere else to go. Today was the day that it all ended. They just couldn’t keep going.

  


What were they still walking for? There was nothing left. Felix had known that and he’d checked out and Jeongin now believed he’d made the right choice.

  


Jeongin knew today was the final day of Stray Kids. He just simply didn’t care.

  
  
  


Seungmin had taken the lead. Minho couldn’t anymore. All he could do was hold on to Jisung’s hand and let the younger boy guide him.

  
  


Jeongin doesn’t know exactly what happened because he couldn’t see as he’d been placed at the back of the line again, but he saw the outlines of his members and he felt when Minho wrenched their hands apart.

  


From the sounds of it, Jisung had just tripped. That had been all it was. That’s all it took to kill him. It wasn’t unexpected. They couldn’t see the ground and it was so incredibly uneven, but life decided to taunt Minho one last time before it took him out too.

  


Jisung had managed to dislodge his blindfold and it was all over instantly. A simple accident had snuffed him out and there was nothing any of them could do to bring him back.

  


Jeongin heard Minho’s desperate cry for Jisung, and it might’ve been one of the most agonising things Jeongin has and will ever hear in his entire life. It was the sound someone makes when they realise they’re about to lose the only thing that matters to them and it’s unspeakably heart breaking. Jeongin has heard Minho cry before, but he’d never heard anything so broken and desperate leave his mouth before that moment.

  


And then it was like the ex-dancer just forgot where they were and what they were supposed to do. Through the veil of Jeongin’s own blindfold, he could tell that Minho just ripped the blindfold off of his face and no one could tell him to stop because all that mattered was Jisung. He just took it off. Maybe he didn’t even care if he died, so long as Jisung was safe, but that wasn’t how things worked anymore. There was no sacrificing themselves for one another because they would all die anyway.

  


Jeongin can recall Seungmin calling out for both of them, and them not replying.

  


Jeongin truthfully can’t describe exactly what happened after. He knows Jisung and Minho killed themselves because the ‘wind’ that had been following them since Chan died had been whispering for him to do the same. His brain blocked out whatever they did and he was grateful he couldn’t see, and he isn’t quite sure if he could ever describe what it sounds like to listen to two of your best friends kill themselves anyway.

  


Seungmin had fumbled around and eventually grabbed his hand and dragged him and Changbin away and that had been it. The end of both Minho and Jisung. Fitting to their relationship, Jeongin thinks. It would make sense for them to die together because they were never apart from one another. The bond they’d had was so incredibly special. Neither of them were especially weak, but they’d filled in each other’s flaws and had given each other strength, as cliche as that might sound.

  


Minho had been especially unlucky. He was never ever supposed to be a leader. He didn’t know how to look after them, and that was okay. It just wasn’t who he was. That was why he wasn’t the leader in the group. The responsibility had just fallen to him and it wasn’t fair.

  


Jeongin hopes Minho knew how much he’d loved him. He had found it hard to read his hyung quite often, but Minho loved them all so much it was scary sometimes. There was no one who was more loyal and kind than Minho. You could see the passion in his eyes, not just for performing but for performing _with them_. There’s just only so long that he could keep up his confident front. Chan and then Woojin and then Hyunjin and then Felix dying had destroyed the foundations of his confidence and Jisung slipping away from him had reduced them to rubble. He had just loved the former rapper far too much and it ended up killing him.

  


Jisung was a different story. He had been the mood maker of the group. He had always been so bright and loud and charismatic. He had kept them all going when they didn’t feel like they could and he had been the first to comfort them if they needed it. Han Jisung had been such an impossibly _good_ person and if Jeongin didn’t feel as dead and numb on the inside as he did right now, he expects it would hurt a lot.

  


It’s not like it mattered though. He’d be joining them soon.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this? An update? So soon after the last one? Am I? Being consistent?
> 
> Probably not. I’m trying my best though. :((
> 
> Anyways, sorry Minsung. I did my best with this chapter and now you know why there’s only eight chapters instead of nine.
> 
> Six down, three to go...


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

 

 

Jeongin had been convinced he was completely numb by the time Minho and Jisung died but he’d been so wrong. What had truly numbed him was what happened after.

 

What happened with Changbin truly _chilled_ Jeongin. It’s not how he died, but what led up to it.  


Minho and Jisung had died only moments before and Seungmin’s hold on Jeongin’s hand had been so tight that it burned. It was like he could feel the older boy’s desperation purely from how hard he was gripping his hand. Seungmin had been the one to drag both him and Changbin away, leaving Minho and Jisung behind. That wasn’t his fault though. They were dead and there was nothing anyone could do.

 

Changbin, up until this point, had been a bit of a mystery to Jeongin. He’d just sort of powered off, like how Hyunjin had. It had been hard to read him because there had been nothing to read. He’d been somewhat of a background character so far. Even when Felix of all people died, Jeongin didn’t see any reaction in Changbin, but that was probably because he was too broken by that point to really pay attention.

 

Jeongin suspects now, looking back on it all, that Changbin had been dead for a while. Maybe not literally, but the time he’d been running on was most definitely borrowed and it was also running out.

 

What confirmed this idea for Jeongin was that, despite Seungmin’s best efforts to lead them out of the nightmare they were stuck in, the next time they were stopped, it wasn’t by any sort of physical force. No one tripped, no one tried to wander off, nothing attacked them, no one’s blindfold fell off or was removed. It was much, much worse because it was such a small thing.

  
  
  


“Guys, wait.”

  
  
  


Jeongin felt Seungmin freeze and could only assume that his eyes had widened as much as his own and his blood had run just as cold.

  


 

“I think it’s safe.”

  


 

Changbin hadn’t spoken since all of this started, other than muttering incoherently  to himself. Now he was talking directly to them. Jeongin’s eyes had been dry for a while, but they welled with stinging tears at the sound of his hyung’s hoarse, scratchy, painfully small voice. Seungmin let out a loud sob, muffling it behind his hand, which was still clasping Jeongin’s tightly. He pleaded with Changbin to not do it, but it sounded more like he was talking to himself, praying to anyone who would listen to not take Binnie too. It was too late though, and Seungmin and Jeongin both realised that by what Changbin said to them next.

  
  
  


“It’s safe. Chan says it’s okay to look.”

  
  
  


Jeongin doesn’t think any single sentence has ever terrified him more and he doesn’t think anything ever could.

 

Changbin’s hand quite literally slipped out of Seungmin’s. Maybe Seungmin let him go. Jeongin isn’t sure. Seungmin was smart and must’ve known there was nothing else they could’ve done. Binnie was dead before he even looked.

  
  
  


 

Jeongin knows what Changbin had meant by now. It had only been a few hours since the older boy died, but Jeongin hears Chan too. He hears him right now. He’d know that accent anywhere. He hears Woojin too, and Hyunjin, Felix, Minho, Jisung and Changbin. They’re all around him, whispering for him to join them, but all from a distance. Perhaps whatever is in the wind knew better than to come closer. He has nothing else it could do to him. Nothing else they could take from him.

 

Seungmin’s voice is absent however. The monsters that had taken over their world must’ve known that it was too recent and raw in Jeongin’s memory for him to believe that that would actually be his hyung’s voice. It could only have been thirty minutes or so since he’d lost Minnie.

  
  
  
  


 

Jeongin is convinced no one actually understood Changbin.

  
People saw a dark concept, so they assumed he was tough, even scary. Why did no one see past that? Why did no one see how bright his smiles had been? How hard he laughed at stupid jokes? Especially Felix’s. How much he loved hugs and other physical affection? The finer details of who Changbin had been were wasted on the people in this world and Jeongin doesn’t think any of them, himself included, really deserved him.

 

Seo Changbin was a softie and no one ever saw him for who he was. Not _really._ He wasn’t scary, he wasn’t even a tiny bit mean, and he wasn’t tough. There genuinely wasn’t a bad bone in his entire body and losing Chan had destroyed him, and all the deaths that had followed had made that fact absolutely certain. Losing any of them would have had the same effect.

  
There always was something dark about Changbin, but it wasn’t his concept. Much like Chan, he’d had some deeper issues that no one saw, but Jeongin could tell. He loved everyone around him _so_ much. _Too_ much, in fact. He needed them in his life and as soon as they started leaving it forever, he just shut down.

 

In another universe, in another life even, Jeongin hopes Changbin never has to lose anyone like he did here. He hopes they can all be together again. Maybe there’s an alternate universe out there somewhere where Stray Kids still exist, where this whole nightmare never happened.

 

That’s a somewhat comforting thought.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter for a shorter boy :(
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry Binnie. I love you lots.
> 
>  
> 
> Only Seungmin and Jeongin left...


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

 

 

The sun is still setting and the sky is orange now. The day is dying and it’s still so sunny, but what for? Sunshine symbolized happiness and that was no longer something that existed.

 

That had been Seungmin’s nickname too. Sunshine.

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

Jeongin wonders why Seungmin even still tried.

 

By that point, the maknae had already accepted his last hyung’s death before it had even happened. He knew the second Changbin died, that they would both be dead soon too.

 

Jeongin doesn’t have it within him to cry. When the first death happened, he was too shocked for the tears to come. By now, he’s been so brutally beaten by the world that his tear ducts no longer worked.

 

What was Seungmin still fighting for? What did he have to live for? Did he feel responsible for the maknae? Jeongin doesn’t know because he didn’t ask.

 

They got separated. _Of course_ they got separated. Changbin had only just died and Seungmin was pleading with Jeongin to never _ever_ let go of his hand. Jeongin suspects the older boy meant that in more ways than just literal. Seungmin could appear like he held himself together pretty well, but he was still an eighteen year old boy. He was only a kid and a mere few months older than Jeongin was himself.

 

Jeongin can tell that Seungmin didn’t want him to let go because he was petrified at the concept of being alone. So, naturally, that’s precisely what happened.

 

The noises that had been following them since all this began started creeping again, faster and louder than before and the two boys had just panicked. Jeongin had been convinced he’d wanted to die, but the biological impulse in his brain that screamed at him to survive kicked in and he let go of Seungmin.

 

The next time he saw his hyung, he wishes more than anything that he could erase the image from his mind.

 

He’d begun wandering around aimlessly. Well, not quite aimlessly. His intention had been to find Seungmin but he knew in his heart that was a fruitless task.

 

He tripped. He fucking _tripped._ He pulled a Jisung and tripped over what had to be a tree root and the edge of his blindfold came up and it was _absolutely not a tree root._

 

  
People never paid attention to Seungmin. He and Changbin had that in common. It seemed like no matter how hard they both worked to get recognised, they just weren’t. Jeongin knows he was lucky to have been seen as cute as he was, because people paid attention to him. He doesn’t know why Seungmin and Changbin didn’t get the same treatment and he never will. They were both so talented and kind and deserved the praise _he_ got.

 

The hollow void in Jeongin’s chest where he used to feel things before the world destroyed him twanged with what must’ve been pain when he saw what he tripped over.

 

However Seungmin had died, it had been agonising and slow and he’d been completely alone. He was so young and he’d obviously been terrified of dying all by himself so that’s precisely what had happened to him.

 

There had been something undeniably innocent about Seungmin. His eyes had once glittered with childish mischief whenever he annoyed the other members and at other times shone with excitement and optimism. He might’ve been one of the most innocent of them all, and no one seemed to realise that.

 

In the brief second Jeongin sees his hyung’s face through one bleary uncovered eye after tripping over his lifeless body, he saw how the blood painted him like a second layer of skin, and how his clothes were completely stained a deep crimson, some of it now his own blood, but most of it Hyunjin’s.

 

Seungmin’s eyes were glassy and empty and he was so incredibly pale his skin was basically grey and it looked as if the older boy had died of blood loss right in that spot after dragging himself around for as long as he could. Blood stained and trickled from his mouth and darkened the surrounding earth.

 

Seungmin hadn’t wanted to die. He hadn’t wanted this. He was the only one of them who hadn’t.

 

Jeongin _despised_ himself for not feeling anything except for the dull pain in his heart. This was _Seungmin_ , one of his most precious hyungs. He’d been close with them all, but there was no denying that he, Seungmin and Hyunjin had been just a little bit closer and the amount the two older boys had loved each other had only heightened how much they loved him. This should hurt far more, shouldn’t it?

 

Make no mistake. Jeongin loves Seungmin so much it actually _hurts_ and it would take a little more than them both being dead to change that. He just doesn’t want to feel anything anymore and his brain appears to have almost completely turned off his emotions. He just wants it to be over.

  
  
  
  


Jeongin knows that he had been Seungmin’s last tie to Hyunjin. He also knows that’s obviously not why Seungmin had wanted to keep him so close by. He knows how deeply Seungmin had loved him. They were brothers. However, he understands that he reminds Seungmin of Hyunjin in some ways, mainly due to how close they had been, and that the older boy can’t allow the last reminder of someone so important to him to just fade away just as Hyunjin himself had.

  


Seungmin was rarely given any credit for everything he did. No one would have expected him to last this long. Jeongin, before, could’ve gone on about it for days, but it didn’t matter how many ways he phrased the same frustrations. Seungmin worked so hard to get recognised by fans, and the ones he had were some of the most loyal and kind but, compared to Jeongin himself or Felix or Hyunjin, people had barely noticed him and it _broke Jeongin’s heart._

 

It’s not like it matters anymore. Seungmin is dead and it seems like the rest of the world is too. If there really is another universe out there, one free from monsters where they all stayed together and went on tour, Jeongin hopes _that_ version of Minnie is loved and cherished, just like _his_ Minnie deserved to be. He hopes the same for alternate universe Changbin and even Woojin too. Fuck it, he hopes they all get the love they deserve and he hopes they get to live the long, happy lives that were stolen from him and his members in this world.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

He’s all alone now. They’re finally all gone. He’d outlived them all. Why him? Why had he been chosen as the onlooker to the deaths of all his friends? The universe had reduced him to being a spectator.

 

It’s still sunny, but the sun is finally setting now and his real sunshine died about half an hour ago and everyone else is gone, which means it’s Jeongin’s turn to look. Time is up.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got a bit ranty so my bad. I love all the members so much and it actually hurts to see that Seungmin isn’t as loved as other members, even if he’s not my bias.
> 
> Eight down, one to go and only one chapter left.


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

Jeongin hauls his aching body off the grass. The ground scrapes his knees as he stands up, his bones aching with exhaustion. He’s sure by now that the dirt and blood has been permanently tattooed on his skin. He can feel the last remnants of the sun dying away in the sky. This is it.

  


He initially hadn’t wanted to take off his blindfold. It was from Woojin. It was the last thing Jeongin would ever have left of him. Before he had died, Woojin had made him promise to never take it off and Jeongin had wanted to keep that promise but what’s the point now? It’s not gonna make Woojin any less dead.

  


The idea of looking at a world that no longer had his hyungs in it wasn’t a world Jeongin ever really wanted to see, but if it would kill him, then who cares?

  


Perhaps curiosity has just gotten the better of him. Perhaps he wants to know what he would see. He can’t imagine anything more horrific than what he has already witnessed.

 

  


  


He grips the back of the dirty blindfold with his blood stained hands, drawing in a deep shaking breath where the air doesn’t quite reach his lungs and, with his eyes firmly screwed shut, he pulls the blindfold off.

 

Immediately the light attacks his eyes, trying to burn his sockets. It’s been so long since he’s properly seen sunlight that it’s like he’s developed an allergy towards it. He can feel the wind rushing around him the whispers of his dead members screaming in his ears. Everything from the second since Chan died has led to this. Every death.

  


It was always in inevitable, whether he wanted to admit it or not. How could you ever live in a world like this and be happy? All the love has died in Jeongin’s life, all possibility of happiness, all warmth, all light, all meaning. That’s why he has to look.

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He opens his eyes.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It all falls silent.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Shouldn’t he be dead by now? Isn’t that how it works? Why isn’t he dead?

  


He can’t see a thing. It’s too bright.

  


It takes a good few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the light and he doesn’t understand. _Why isn’t he dead?_

  


That’s all he wanted. He wants to join his members so why isn’t it working? What was he supposed to see? He thought he was supposed to see something that terrified him, so where is it?

  
  


The sun casts a haunting orange glow over the ground and hurts Jeongin’s skin. Everything seems dull. The color has been drained from the entire world.

  


The monsters are silent. Everything is silent. He’s alone.

  
  


Then he understands.

  
  


The monsters can’t hurt him. They left him alone because the hell he’s stuck in is already everything he has ever feared. He already wants to die. They have no effect on him.

  
  


He’s already been dead for a long, long time and he hadn’t even realised.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Where he’s standing used to be a nature trail of some sort. The cliff overlooks a forest that had once been filled with all kinds of animals and people who used to come here to visit. He actually thinks maybe he came here once. A long time ago with his parents when they had been visiting Seoul. Maybe not though. He doesn’t remember.

  


The terrain is rough and jagged. Now, Jeongin doesn’t blame Jisung for tripping. He’s surprised _he_ didn’t.

  


Sure enough, there is a cliff edge in front of him. It’s not the tallest he’s ever seen but looking down it’s certainly enough to kill him.

  


So it’s decided.

  
  
  
  


With the blindfold clutched tightly in his fist, Yang Jeongin takes one last deep breath of air that doesn’t even smell like it belongs to his planet anymore, and then he closes his eyes, however redundant that may be, and steps backwards off the ledge, allowing the ground to slip away from his feet, gasping as he falls.

  
  
  


He had done his very best to remember his members as they were, instead of what the world made them into.  
  


Bang Chan wasn’t a bloody mess of flesh and bone on the side of the road. He was fierce and brave and protective and kind and his eyes twinkled when he smiled and he would never ever abandon you or let you stop fighting. He was the best leader anyone could have ever asked for. No one had been better than him. He had made Jeongin feel so safe.

  


Kim Woojin didn’t die alone, invisible to a world that no longer gave a shit. He was quiet and reserved and stern but so incredibly loving and he always listened when you had a problem because he really truly cared. He was the backbone of the entire group, silently supporting and protecting every single one of them until his dying breath.

  


Hwang Hyunjin wasn’t just another victim of naivete, left in a pool of his own blood in some strangers house in a random place in Korea. He was the most affectionate boy you’d ever meet and gave the best hugs in the world and had a laugh so beautiful and pure and alive that it could lift your mood whenever you heard it, no matter how sad you were.  
  


Lee Felix was not weak and he was not, by any means at all, a coward, which some may accuse him of being. He was gentle and sweet and always made you feel like it was okay to be vulnerable and it was okay to cry and make mistakes, because he’d always love you no matter what. He filled Jeongin’s life with warm smiles and light and Jeongin was thankful for every single moment.

  


Han Jisung and Lee Minho were not stupid and did not throw away their lives for pointless reasons. Jisung was loud and bright and colourful and always was the first to make sure you were okay and always made you laugh until you cried with terrible, terrible jokes and Minho was hilarious and deadpan and passionate and loyal right until the very end. There was nowhere on earth that any of them could go where he would ever even hesitate to follow them. They had loved each other so much and never left each other’s sides.

  


Seo Changbin didn’t just waste away and give in to the voices. He had been one of the softest people Jeongin had ever met. He’d loved every single person in his life so much that it hurt him and had channelled his pain into his art in hope that it would let other people know that they weren’t alone. He acted like he was tough, but no one Jeongin had ever known had had a heart as pure as Changbin’s.

  


Kim Seungmin was not a blue-lipped corpse, left to rot on a random forest floor. He was eccentric and incredibly intelligent and full of unique quirks and he was kind of weird and he made strange noises and he relentlessly annoyed Jeongin every day and Jeongin adored every single second of it and would give anything in the world to experience it one last time.

  


What about him? Did _he_ make any difference? Did his existence matter to anyone? Jeongin likes to think so but he’ll never know for sure. Everyone likes to think they’ve left some sort of impact, but how many people really do? He was so young too. How much could he have really done?

  


All he really knows is that all of them, all of Stray Kids, they had made an impact even if it was only small. They hadn’t been given enough time to flourish properly, however, the lyrics that Chan, Jisung and Changbin had written had stayed with people. The music they had made together had helped people. It had always been what they planned to do. That was all Jeongin had ever _wanted_ to do. He could’ve done a lot more, but it wasn’t a bad run. Not by any shot. He’d done the best he could with the time he’d had.

  


None of that matters to Yang Jeongin now though. He doesn’t care about anything anymore. He doesn’t feel anything. He doesn’t have to suffer anymore. The monsters can’t hurt him now.

  


Maybe that means that they had won, but Jeongin hit the ground a few minutes ago and they have already moved onto their next victims. He doesn’t care and neither do they.

  


Jeongin feels nothing now, only peace.

  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it’s finally finished. I can’t believe I actually finished a fic. This is unheard of.
> 
> Anyway, thanks to all the people who left nice comments. You guys really are what kept me going when I didn’t feel like what I was writing was any good.
> 
> I hope this was a decent ending? Sorry that I put poor Innie through all of that.

**Author's Note:**

> This’ll be my take on how Stray Kids would do if the events of Bird Box took place in our world. I know there’s a few of these floating around already but I wanted to give it a go.
> 
> It’s not gonna be happy, I’m sorry.
> 
> I didn’t really like how the movie ended bc happiness? Never heard of her, so prepare for unrelating angst.


End file.
